Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera Review

Oct 02, 2008 - By Richard Baguley
The new flagship in Nikon's Coolpix S (for Stylish) range is the S710, a $379 point-and-shoot which boasts an awesome 14.5-megapixel resolution, 3.6x zoom lens and optical image stabilization. But just adding more resolution does not guarantee a winning camera; in other ways, the S710 is less impressive. At a time when many cameras are shooting high-definition video, the S710 shoots only standard definition, and has only an analog video output. And we found a few handling quirks in our hands-on tests at the Photokina show; the zoom control is poorly placed. Of course, we'll have to wait until we can get this camera into our testing labs before we can see how much benefit increasing the resolution to 14.5 megapixels might make, but the high-end compact camera range is definitely looking competitive.
Advertisement

Model Design / Appearance
Nikon refers to the S710 as the "World’s most compact design," but there are a couple of asterisks on that. First is that this claim is only amongst 14-megapixel cameras with optical image stabilization, which narrows the field down significantly. And secondly, it is no longer true; the Samsung TL34HD has both 14-megapixel resolution and optical image stabilization. Nikon gets around this by adding this note: "Among 14-megapixel compact cameras equipped with optical vibration reduction as of August 7, 2008," but  they really ought to update their web site now we are in October and the claim is no longer true. Which is not to say that the S710 has anything to be ashamed of in its figure: at one inch thick, it's a pretty small camera that would fit neatly into a shirt pocket or smallish handbag.

Size and Handling
The S710 fits fairly comfortably into the hand; the index finger falls right onto the shutter and the thumb falls onto the area below the zoom control. However, we did find that it was somewhat prone to slipping when we moved the thumb to zoom in or out. The zoom control really needed two hands to use comfortably without the camera slipping.


We found that the Nikon S710 was somewhat prone
to slipping when using the zoom control


Menu
The S710 has slightly unusual menu structure, with various options appearing on a circular dial when you hit the mode button. You can scroll around this list with the scroll wheel, and select the required option with the select key in the middle of the dial.  It's a slightly confused approach, but it seems pretty easy to figure out once you grasp how it works.

 

When you hit the menu button (or select the setup option from the mode menu), you get a more conventional list-style menu that can be scrolled down using the multi selector either as a scroll wheel or a directional control. Some of these menus are rather long, but the screen includes a small guide in the top right corner that shows which screen you are on. The setup menu is about 4 screens long, so finding an option on this menu can be a somewhat tedious exercise.
  

Ease of Use
Overall, the S710 is a moderately easy to use camera, with most of the features easily accessible. Changing the scene mode isn't that easy, as you have to hit the mode button, scroll around the menu to the the screen option, click on the select button, then select the new scene mode. That all takes a fair amount of time; it would have been preferable to have some way of jumping straight to the scene mode menu. However, you do have the option of simply putting the camera into scene auto selector mode, where the camera automatically picks the scene mode to use, based on the preview image.


Components Page 4 of 8 Modes
Nikon Coolpix S710 First Digital Camera Impressions Review Navigation
Advertisement